Today, it is common for individuals to communicate via a number of media. For example, two people may frequently communicate via electronic mail, instant messaging, and voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP) telephony. At the same time, spam and other malware has increased not only in absolute amount, but in the number of media involved.
As such, it has become more important to be certain that a communication is not only originating from a legitimate or reliable source, but that the source is, in fact, a human rather than a computer or other non-human source. Universal authentication systems exist that enable “reputation” or source information to be shared across modalities, but these employ authenticated, and often proprietary, directory services with which communicants must pre-authenticate. Thus, such systems do not permit reputation or source information to be shared where, for example, a non-authenticated communicant initiates a communication.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.